Teresa Martin: Smart diapers absorb parental anxiety

By Teresa MartinContributing Writer

Tuesday

May 7, 2019 at 3:00 AM

Smart cars. Smart kitchens. What’s next? Well, what would you say to smart diapers? Happy Mother’s Day — have I got a gift for you!

File this under “I can’t make it up.” At the CES conference in January, South Korean company Monit showed its latest wave of Bluetooth-connected sensors ... attached to the nappy on your kiddo's bottom. It said it was partnering with Kimberly-Clark and the Huggies brand disposable diaper to bring the latest in parental paranoia tech to the U.S. market; Monit x Huggies already launched in South Korea last fall.

OK, I’m being a little flip, but when you have new baby you will buy anything and everything that promises an answer, an assurance, or reassurance. Trust me, I’ve been there. When it came to diapers, though, I was lucky. I had Farhfie the wonder dog as my partner. I never needed to worry about the state of diapers; one drop of wetness on my human baby’s behind and my canine nursemaid woo-wooed, herded me with her snoot, and let me know if I wasn’t moving quickly enough to correct the situation.

But if you aren’t lucky enough to have your own wonder-dog diaper sensor, well, technology brings you another option. From Samsung’s Creative Labs comes Monit — selling baby air quality monitors, Bluetooth-controlled baby nightlights and, now, diaper monitors, which send an alert to your phone when that special diaper change moment arrives.

It also lets you compile a dossier of data on your wee one’s pee and poop patterns. In theory you could flag changes that might signal possible problems or use it a platform for timing potty training schedules. Consider this an arrow in the quiver of smartphone parenting or, perhaps, an attempt by personal-products companies to keep driving revenue in light of dropping birthrates in the U.S. combined with the challenges in marketing and differentiating for what is essentially a commodity product.

This is not the first such diaper tech initiative. Taiwanese company Opro9’s website boasts of its Smart Diaper: Receive reminders when your baby pees! Save money by reducing wasteful diaper changes! Get a jump on potty training! You can buy Opor9 on Amazon for $48.95.

Last year Alphabet, Google’s parent company, applied for a patent for an integrated diaper system with conductive fibers and an array of sensors including temperature, moisture and even an accelerometer — all connected to a reusable electronic module.

On crowdfunding site Indiegogo, Smardii promises real-time health monitoring of your precious little one — but wait, there’s more. Smardii comes as a system of sensors and special diaper subscriptions and a gateway so you can get those Bluetooth alerts even if you don’t stand in close proximity to Baby. Oh, and it’s also Alexa-enabled.

Back in 2014, Pixie Scientific ran a campaign on Indiegogo to fund its own smart diaper ecosystem with diapers, phone app and cloud service, along with a data-gathering study at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco. You could even order diapers in a box customized to feature an image of your new center-of-the-universe being. (An option to which one can only say ... baby-induced sleep deprivation creates some strange ideas!)

Since then, the company has changed direction a bit, perhaps homing in on where the real application for these types of sensors might lie: the adult market. It deploys its Smart Pads in nursing homes and other environments where incontinence and concerns about urinary tract infections (UTIs) turn out to be far more pressing than worries about Baby’s bottom.

For all the talk of baby diapers, for the most part we figure it out. In a few short weeks we know Baby’s “pooping face” and we can quickly check for dampness. But for those living or caretaking in skilled-care facilities, where doting parents aren’t hovering around for the slightest sign of discomfort, a sensor alert system could make a real difference. One that not only alerts that a change is needed but also performs some basic screening could catch issues before they balloon and make a real difference to health and health care.

With sensors and a Bluetooth connection, we can track almost anything. Maybe the soon-to-arrive smart Huggies might become the hot new baby shower gift. Maybe comparing pee-and-poop apps will be the trendy conversation at Mommy & Me groups and play dates. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to have a wonder dog to walk them through the first scary months of parenthood, and if you don’t have your own canine nursemaid, diaper sensor tech might be the second best answer.

— Teresa Martin lives, breathes and writes about the intersection of technology, business and humanity. Read more of her recent columns at www.capecodtimes.com/teresamartin.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.